AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 21, 2025

Alex De Minaur

Press Conference

A. de MINAUR/A. Michelsen

6-0, 7-6, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the press conference of Alex de Minaur. First of all, congrats, Alex, first quarterfinal at your home slam. Are you happy about your performance so far?

ALEX de MINAUR: I'm super happy, super happy to finally breakthrough, finally get that milestone moment here at the Australian Open. It feels like the slam that kept on slipping away where I felt like I had a little bit of a barrier at the fourth round.

So it feels very good to finally break through another milestone in my career.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Can I get you to reflect on your journey, Round 32 guy, fourth rounds, quarterfinals, the rise and the change in that journey?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, look, I think I have been quite vocal about my ambitions and goals at slams. For way too long I felt like I wasn't performing in the bigger stages in the bigger tournaments.

Ultimately I knew that if I wanted to be a better player and if I wanted to be a top-10 player, these were the tournaments where I had to start performing a whole lot better.

I have worked really hard on myself to give myself these opportunities and chances. It hasn't been overnight. It's been a long process.

But I'm glad that I'm showing this consistency, and it's a good feeling to have, yeah, four back-to-back quarterfinals at slams.

Q. Obviously you would be aware of your record against Jannik Sinner. Do you feel like the way that you're playing, maybe you're closing the gap and this is going to be your best chance?

ALEX de MINAUR: You know, the great thing about tennis is that once you step out on the court, you both start at 0-0, right? It's a whole new day, a whole new match, and anything can happen. Sports is unpredictable.

That's exactly the mindset I'm going to have going into that match. I'm looking forward to it. That's the matches I want to be playing. Ultimately, if there is anything, it's going to be my first match this whole tournament where I'm the underdog and don't have all the pressure and expectation of, you know, having to win.

So it's quite exciting, and I'm looking forward to that.

Q. You mentioned a few times the long process, but last year when you were injured, you had to physically kind of rebuild yourself. I know you have spoken about it a little bit, but can you sort of talk through that process, about the peaks and the troughs and the different things you went through? Was it like a brutal physical rebuild, or was is just smaller things that you worked on to get yourself ready?

ALEX de MINAUR: I would say it was brutal, both physically and mentally. I mean, again, in a way, at some point I would love to, you know, open up fully about everything that I went through in that period, because it was a lot, but ultimately the people in my team, in my surroundings, they know how tough it was.

But to give you a little bit of an insight, it was just brutal from not knowing what my injury was, what my problem was, to not knowing the timeline to coming back to competing with so much pain and inhibiting my movement for so long, to mentally having to push myself every time I stepped out on court, knowing that my biggest asset, which is my movement, is not there.

So no matter what, if I'm gonna win that match on that day, I was going to have to be so strong mentally, knowing that, you know, I had my limitations and I still had to compete from the very first point till the last.

Yeah, just waiting, more than anything, waiting days and weeks for there to be no pain on my movement. It was a bloody long process, but I'm glad we're here right now, yeah, and we've passed the page hopefully.

Q. When you assess coming up the quarterfinal, do you look at the matches you played against him, or do you look at the matches that he's played, or what do you rely on? The coaches going and having a look at what happened today? Is it yourself? How do you prepare tactically for that battle?

ALEX de MINAUR: I think it's a little bit of everything. There is a big part of all the matches that we have played in the past, looking at his matches from this week and what he's done well and what he's struggled to do.

Then you've got to play the match on face value and forget about everything that's happened in the past. The only thing that I want to take from the past is the matches that I felt like I played well and I found different areas where I could expose them.

Ultimately going into that, we will come up with a set game plan. Obviously a lot depends on when we play, whether it's day or night. That's completely two different matches and two different ways of playing him.

Yeah, get ready for a battle from the very first point till the last.

Q. I was wondering if you have had many conversation with Lleyton Hewitt, someone who has played a lot of his best tennis in his early 20s, had a similar kind of mobility to you and, you know, maybe struggled more towards the end of his 20s. Have you spoken to him much about mortality of life on the tour and when is the time to perform ultimately?

ALEX de MINAUR: He's been my Davis Cup Captain for a while now, and I have learned a lot through him. I have picked his brain many, many times. You know, ultimately one of my biggest goals the last couple of years was to perform at the slams.

More than anything, his advice has always been that, you know, the first week of a slam is there to find a way and get through. Doesn't matter how you do it, whether it's pretty or ugly, you just got to find a way to get yourself to the second week, because in the second week of a slam, anything can happen. You start playing with confidence. You have played four matches already, feeling the conditions, the balls, the atmosphere, and then you're not that far off from the big title.

So that's the kind of mindset I have had the last couple of slams, get through the first week and then we'll see what happens.

Q. There has been a lot of commentary about your serve and how much work you have put into that. I think you had 215 tonight. But you have had your first-serve percentage in the 40s. Getting your take where you think your serve is now, and if you're attempting to take more risks? Is there a number you're happy with?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, I think last couple of matches those serves just decided to go away on a little vacay, kind of deserted me for a little while.

Yeah, look, I think these numbers are not something that I want day in and day out. Obviously it's great to get through the matches and you live to fight another day, but ultimately you still -- like the first couple of rounds where I'm serving at the same pace, but I'm still looking at 60s, 60%, so that's -- anywhere around that is definitely good serving numbers for me.

Look, ultimately I do have that extra pop on my serve where I can get, you know, that 215, for example, tonight, but doesn't mean I've got to use it all the time. It's about using that variety and setting up the next shot and keeping your opponents guessing whether you're going to go for the big one down the T or you're going to take a little bit of pace off and go for the short slider, go somewhere in the body, just keep that variety going. And, yeah, I'm sure my serve will come back.

Q. You were asked about Jannik already, but you obviously broke a long drought against Tsitsipas. Can you talk us through that mindset going into the Tsitsipas, your head-to-head record, breaking through there, whether that's something you can potentially draw upon coming up against Jannik?

ALEX de MINAUR: Yeah, it ultimately is -- look, Jannik is a hell of a player, right? And I think Taylor said it quite well when he got asked upon whether it's a bad matchup for him, and he said it straight: Look, it's not really about being a bad matchup. It's that he's a pretty good player, right? So he's a bad matchup for a lot of players out there on tour.

Looking on that, I just gotta go and look at the things that I have done well against him. I have hit with him this week, so just look at that, look back at the match I played in Rotterdam. For me, that one was probably, out of the last matches we have played, the only one that I can really take a lot out of, because I was physically at 100%, and I think that was quite a good battle with opportunities here and there.

So I'll take a lot from that, and, hey, we've never played quarterfinals of a slam. So that's a new one.